Commentary on Haier’s Marketing on Sina Weibo

 1155082031 CHEN Ye (Amanda)

The development of technology as well as the popularity of social media has brought great change to the way in which the companies do marketing. On Sina Weibo, a social media platform enjoying great popularity in China, a great number of brands, whether famous or not, are doing marketing with their official accounts. This essay is going to discuss Haier’s performance in social media marketing on Sina Weibo, since it can be seen as the pioneer of famous brands marketing on social media. Nowadays, a lot of brands will regard Haier as “大哥海尔” when leaving comments on Weibo.

·                   Brand awareness & reputation

Haier’s Sina account has become famous since its response to the words of Wang Jianlin, President of Wanda Group, who mentioned Haier as a comparison in an interview, and said that what Wanda did is much more meaningful and excellent than Haier.

Figure 1. Wang Jianlin mentioning Haier in interview

Instead of keeping silent or giving official response in traditional ways, Haier reposted the video of interview and left comment as Figure 2 below on Sina Weibo.

Figure 2. Haier’s response on Sina Weibo

The response to Wang Jianlin’s words has not only highlighted the greatness and meaningfulness of the action of Haier in 1985 to destroy 76 fridges that almost met the production standard, but was also a good “fight back” to Wang Jianlin’s diminishment on the action. After Haier posting response on Weibo, many brands and companies realized that it was a hot topic and reposted with added comment. Figure 3 below is an example.

Figure 3. Many companies reposted Haier’s 

The response of Haier on Weibo has made its official account famous and gained it a lot of followers. What’s more, the consumers, especially the young people who have never heard about “张瑞敏砸冰箱”, are led to review the event, which can perfectly show Haier’s strong sense of quality and responsibility. Through the little fight back to Wang Jianlin, Haier also showed its horns and made itself different from the other brand accounts who only post things in official tone. What is also worth mentioning is the heat Haier gained after its response. With many companies and brands reposting and adding comments, and also because the response itself is full of topicality, Haier got a lot of exposure that time and gained much favorable impression.

Haier’s unusual way of responding on Weibo is a typical example of companies utilizing social media to add to their brand awareness and reputation. Now Haier is still active on Weibo, often occupying the “热评” under heated posts.

·                   PARC Principles

（1） Participatory

    Haier performs very actively in the Weibo community, its daily updating is frequent, which contains greetings, lucky draws of presents from fridges to food take-out, helping the fans express love to their idols, inviting followers to design posters for Haier, asking followers to answer the questions of the other followers., etc. The tone used in its daily update and the content it posts make its official account seems fun and amiable to the followers. Since every interaction with consumer can be regarded as a marketing, Haier’s daily interaction with consumers have added to its reputation.

（2） Authenti

  People do business with companies they know, like and trust. Haier’s interaction with consumers on Sina Weibo is not only professional but also personable. Figure 4 below is an example. Haier interacted with a consumer on Weibo, providing professional introduction with pellucid words in response with the consumer’s question. This kind of responses not only show Haier’s expertise in the field but also make it affable to consumers.

Figure 4. Haier’s reply to a consumer

 

（3） Resourceful 

    Haier also tries to help consumers with their Weibo account. Figure 5 below is an example. When consumers tag @海尔 on Weibo and ask a question, it reposts the original question and gives a reply for help. This kind of replies to consumers can also be seen as promotion of their products. The updates of Haier on Weibo contains related and useful information of their brand as well.

Figure 5. Haier’s reply to consumers

（4） Credible 

    Haier is also trying to build brand’s trustworthiness and a reputation of knowledge and expertise in the field. Recently, the National People’s Congress and the Chinese Political Consultative Conference were held in Beijing, and the Chairman of Haier, Zhou Yunjie, has attended the conference. Haier posted related information with a hashtag #我厂总裁在两会#. See Figure 6 below.

 

Figure 6. Haier’s post of #我厂总裁在两会#

·                   Response to negative comments 

However, the good comments on Haier’s activeness on Sina Weibo are also accompanied by some negative ones. Some have complained that Haier should not act like those marketing accounts and thought that it was annoying to see Haier in the “热评” under other posts.

 

Figure 7. Haier’s response to negative comments

 
Being faced with negative comments like these, Haier posted an article on Weibo, talking about how Haier started to act actively on Weibo, its initial idea, what they have achieved with followers and what negative comments they have received. They also attached a vote with the article and invited consumers to vote in order to decide “Whether Haier should continue its ‘刷赞’”. The article was written in an emotional way, which is very appealing. As a result, 92.6% of the participants of the voting chose “Continue”.

Nowadays so many brands and companies are doing marketing on Sina Weibo or other social medias, Haier is just a typical example, but from Haier’s case, we can clearly see the significance of utilizing social media to do marketing, for a company.